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Asia Rosier, left, and Reginald Fuller of Myers Middle School sharpened their writing skills through the Deep program.

The students of the Deep program will present a showcase of their literary creations at the Jepson Center on June 7.

Open to the public, Deep Speaks helps the students develop their creative writing skills and gives them a chance to display what they have learned to the community.

“Students have a chance to share their work, which is fun and builds their confidence,” says Catherine Killingsworth, the program’s executive director. “The community gets to hear fantastic stories from these kids who are talented, and it’s a real pleasure.”

Deep volunteers influence a plethora of public school students in the area and give them the time and structure that fosters literary creativity.

“We have 200 students who are working with us, and we have recruited local writers for the last couple months who work with the students,” Killingsworth explains. “We want to give them a place to read and be proud of what they’ve done.”

This program will be the first Deep Speaks at the Jepson, a bigger venue than the previous space at the Department of Cultural Affairs, which funds the Deep program and generously facilitates the space they use for free, Killingsworth says.

“Deep is a local nonprofit that offers free writing workshops to public school students, mostly in middle school,” she says. “Our mission is to help kids ages 8 to 18 develop writing skills and voices as students, citizens and writers, as well as to help teachers get them excited about writing.”

Deep is so influential that students themselves have even taken action to keep it at their schools.

“We had to cut a program at Heard Elementary to use resources for a middle school,” Killingsworth recalls. “Students there we so upset that they created petition to reinstitute program there.

“We work at 19 different locations and are hoping to expand that to a couple new places,” Killingsworth notes. “Volunteers teach in teams and meet with 8 to 12 students once week for an hour and 15 minuets.”

Deep not only provides creative writing enrichment — it also helps the students with their academic writing skills.

“(Deep) helped them through constantly writing on various topics ... and coming up with different ways to express themselves,” says Frank Bell, site coordinator of the 21st Century after-school program at Hubert Middle. “On the CRCT, they were pretty good as a school. They did a great job in my opinion.

“They gave them a topic, and they had to make up a story about it in front of everyone and then write about it. It was interesting to me,” Bell says. “I got involved in it with them. They have several different techniques and ideas in the programs.”

The volunteer staff and its positive attitude are an asset to the program.

“I think the way that they interact with the kids is always professional, and the kids look forward to working with them,” Bell explains.

Local schools provide the after-school workspace where the students and Deep volunteers work on their writing projects. Those are published by the program, giving students the chance to become published writers.

“The kids have been working really hard to write stories and poems that we will be publishing and want to share them with Savannah,” Killingsworth says.

This year, efforts focused on eighth-graders because of exit exams. However, Killingsworth says, next year they will expand to sixth- and seventh-graders to prepare them for high school even earlier. The next public deep event will come in January 2013.

“I think it’s made the students excited about writing,” says Melissa Sukanek, assistant principal of DeRenne Middle School. “They’re proud of that book (of published work).”